


i keep her in check

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Developing Friendships, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Multi, he's a kid WHO let this child go through so much in such little time, i watched into the spiderverse and may i say, miles morales made me have a nervous breakdown like five times, who authorized that huh??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 16:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17770286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Miles would use the term 'frenemies', but that wouldn't even be close to summarize how complicated it was to be friends with this girl.





	1. curiosity killed the cat

**Author's Note:**

> SO i watched into the spider-verse and i realized three things
> 
> 1) i can't believe a 13 year old had to go through all that holy shit protect miles morales at all costs
> 
> 2) hearing the voice of john mulaney emit from a cartoon pig forced me to rewatch at least four of his bits (delta airlines included)
> 
> 3) there's not enough fics with miles that are age appropriate FOR A CHILD CHARACTER and i may have a thing for the 'how are we gonna make this friends thing work ur aunt tried to kill me yesterday' trope

So, here's the thing: getting trapped in the laboratory _with_ the – as he poorly assumed – frightened girl was not part of Miles's plan. Neither was having a goose chase with her around the table, but unfortunately the ‘hero’ title was still fickle amongst the citizens of Brooklyn, and this particular citizen had a capricious way of dealing with Spider-man's rescue attempt just a few moments ago.

“ _Don't_ – touch that!” He yelled out just before the girl raised a capped flask, ignoring the sloshing solution inside. She might have seen nothing wrong with it, but Miles knew better with the spider sense sounding alarms in his head.

He was rewarded with a petulant glance, and a pointed, “And _whyyy_ should I listen to you, Spider-nerd?”

“Because,” and no, Miles Morales did not _get_ childishly disgruntled at the obvious mangling of his well-earned title of Spider-man because he was already fifteen and, by the words of Mrs. Lewis, ‘a mature young man’, “if that gets anywhere _near_ your skin you'll get a bad chemical burn. And I'm sure, if not absolutely positive, you don't want that to happen, kid.”

Despite the voice modulator he built in hoping to make his voice cracks a little less obvious, and – if he dare say so himself – the growth spurt that hit him like a bat, the girl payed no mind to his authority.

“Oh screw you, mister know-it-all! Auntie Liv taught me about dimethyl sulfate infused liquids before I could even pronounce my own name. I know what this does in clear contact with human skin. That's why I'm gonna do something like _this_!”

His spider sense started going off before she threw the container at him, aiming directly at his head with surprising agility. Naturally, he dodged the poor attack, but not before a part of his mind registered the words ‘auntie’ connected to the civilian nickname of Dr. Octopus, the head of Alchemax and, oh, substantially, _his arch enemy._

“Wait, hold up, did you just say _auntie_? You're...” _Claire_ , he offered rather quizzically to his confused mind.

Paying little attention to the fuming girl, Miles rewinded the events from this morning. Somewhere after the physics test he absolutely aced, Mr. Donovan, uncharacteristically joyful, mentioned being late because he had to go to the airport to pick up his girlfriend – _gross_ _–_ Olivia's niece, Claire.

“ _I'm_ thinking you should make yourself comfortable.”

Miles was going to be a little disappointed in himself later, but at the moment he only turned his head in time to witness the girl pressing a thumb against the monitor behind her. Suddenly his body was constricted, enhanced hearing picking up the sound of resistant vibranium bars clicking in their proper locks.

 _And don't get easily distracted,_ Peter B's voice echoed somewhere behind the swelling of humiliation inside his chest. Perhaps Spider-man wasn't looking awfully happy with the current situation, but the girl was absolute ecstatic, going so far as bouncing on her heels in silent joy.

“Okay,” he offered in annoyance, “you got me. Good job, Irwin. What now? _Auntie taught you to dissect people too?_ ”

Caught up in her grand catch, she completely missed the small robotic spider slipping out of Miles's palm and crawling towards the unsupervised touchscreen. Her eyes squinted at his suspended form, she almost casually leaned against Olivia's table and folded her arms.

“Nope! I'm no good with blood.”

“Lucky me, I guess,” he lamely provided, mask obscured eyes carefully following as the spider crawled up the stand, and extended a cable from it's plump abdomen to connect to the device.

“But _I am_ awfully curious. And auntie mentioned a pesky little arachnid messing with her work often. Always wondered what's behind that mask, she said.”

_Oh._

Oh, no. That was _not_ happening.

“Did she? Well I think that messing with her work is more fun with a bit of mystery added to it.”

 _C'mon little guy, don't bail on me now_ , he begged, watch the icon of a lock on the screen turn from green to yellow.

The girl hummed, approaching Miles with a mischievous smirk and her fingers wiggling mid-air.

“Too bad. You know, the Spider-man I saw on TV was a lot taller.”

The device buzzed and the icon turned red, Miles feeling the tightening sensation around his midriff loosen first. Claire gasped and whirled around to the monitor, giving him enough time to slip out of the trap with a gracious leap.

“ _You._ How did you even...”

“Sorry kid, you would had gotten away with it if it wasn't for this meddling spider.” He landed just beside the monitor, picking up the little robot that just saved him from the clutches of a witty high schooler, albeit with the capability to considerately spike his adrenaline.

Miles played fair most of the time, but Claire Pearce hurt his ego more than Dr. Octopus did this time around, so he had a solid justification for thwipping her nosy self to the table and turning a blind eye to her mortified expression.

“Hey, no worries, that'll dissolve in a hour... or three.”

Okay, so maybe he was feeling a _little_ vengeful for that lame nickname, but her angry _you're a jerk!_ which followed him out the room as he crawled out of the vent didn't do much to change his mind.


	2. it's getting late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he's too proud to notice that claire is actually almost as tall as him, and that maybe (defineatly) with a good heel on her side, she'd be taller. oh, also, spider-man owes her an apology.

“It's only dislocated. My arm got... stuck.”

Stuck was, Miles absentmindedly thought, listening in to the conversation beside the water fountain, a broad term. Okay so, maybe – _and just maybe_ – he felt a pang of guilt sting his sides at the girls wrapped up left arm.

“Geez Claire, what a way to start off.” Another voice provided with a chuckle, and he heard Claire huff out a bitter laugh. The news became apparent after a day or so from his first encounter with Dr. Octopus's niece. She wasn't merely visiting her aunt, but staying with her _for an extended period due to private reasons_ , as Mr. Donovan explained, after she introduced herself to the class as Claire Pearce, biology and chemistry enthusiast.

Oh, by the way, did he mention that she was a new student at his high school? Going to his class? _With him?_

It's not that Miles disliked her, but behaving like an ungrateful brat after he tried to save her from the clutches of a human–experimentation friendly doctor didn't give her the credibility for him to even _consider_ a possible alliance, either.

“...to me? _Hellooo?_ Earth to stranger?”

He blinked away the onslaught of bad memories and turned to directly face Claire herself. Probably looking daft for a second or two, he furrowed his brows and caught dumbfound responded with an awkward, “uhh, come again?”

“Your chemistry notes,” she started, already a little peeved, which made him want to immediately stick her to a desk _again_ , “I didn't write down part of the main formula, so I was wondering if you could lend them to me.”

Miles blinked and looked around almost suspiciously, tugging on the strap of the heavy backpack slung over his shoulder. “Why mine?”

“Well,” she started a little uncomfortably, “I sit behind you and I think you have the neatest handwriting. Kinda easy to read, precise, but you should really stop scribbling on the corners of the pages!”

That took him off guard. He settled for a stretched period of silence, reassessing the girl in front of him. She was shorter than him, but the eerily familiar mess of brunette curls atop her head that Dr. Octopus sported as well made her seem taller than she actually was. Probably a family thing, he noted, and let his gaze flicker from her dark brown eyes to the dust of _almost_ invisible freckles around her nose and cheekbones.

“So?” She picked at a loose string on her bandage, something he regarded as a nervous tick at him being unnaturally still and examining her so closely.

 _That's creepy, Miles. You're not wearing the mask and glaring. Probably freaking her out_.

“The arm. Er, _your arm._ What happened to it?”

 _Excellent conversational skills, totally smooth, suave... couldn't be prouder or myself._ He almost rubbed a hand down his face in reality, instead of only the mental slap he gave himself.

She barely shifted her demeanor, but he noticed the little frown at the corner of her lips.

“Got hurt. I can be a little clumsy. Anyways, look, if you don't want to borrow me your notes it's fine, I'm sorry for...”

“ _No!_ No, you can have them. It's fine. I'm sorry.” And he wasn't sure what he was apologizing for, because the stinging sensation returned uninvited again.

Rummaging through his backpack, careful to not have her spot his suit, Miles pulled out the chemistry notes and sorted them before handing them over.

She smiled lightly, offering a warm _thank you_ that made him groan internally. Turns out she might actually be a nice girl, and he's the paranoid idiot.

Miles sighed out loud and could almost hear his uncle pulling the _man, you're just like your old man... a whole dumbass when talking to the ladies_.

“I'm Claire Pearce, by the way.” She continued as the silence stretched out for too long again, and managed to somehow stick the notes under her injured arm in order to extended her right one to him for a formal introduction.

“Miles Morales.” _Also Spider-man._ Also the guy that got you injured and is currently being devoured by guilt.

He recognized what Peter B. meant that one evening on his fire escape, when they were chewing down on cold pizza and, respectively, drinking a coke and a beer that Peter refused to even _set_ near Miles, even when he oh-so-kindly asked for the tiniest sip.

 _You're a kid, and we both know your mother would ground you for a millennia if she caught the slightest whiff of alcohol on your being_ , _Miles_.

And, okay, he was absolutely right, but that didn't stop him from trying to reach for it during Peter's monologue about sometimes hurting innocent people along the way and being consumed with guilt, but not letting it define you or your motivation to continue saving people.

Don't get it mixed up, he listened to it carefully, but just now, facing Claire Pearce, he felt the tentative echo of the other Spider-man's words.


	3. hate's a strong word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what's this? finally some set plot for these short chapters? shocking!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he's really bad the whole 'indifferent' act but that's because he cares too much about a lot of things, okay?

They stared at each other for a beat before Miles lifted his gloved hand in a stiff wave.

“What are you doing here?” Claire whispered, having every right to sound as unsettled as she did.

 _I_ _think_ _your_ _aunt_ _is_ _hiding_ _an_ _inter- dimensional_ _specimen_ _from_ _Earth-14512_ _in_ _hopes_ _of_ _dissecting_ _and_ _studying_ _it_ _for_ _a proper creation of a mutate copy, able_ _to_ _be_ _adapted_ _to_ _this_ _universe_ _for_ _Wilson_ _Fisks_ _evil_ _plan_ , wouldn't sound right. It wouldn't justify exactly what Spider-man was doing inside her aunt's apartment somewhere after midnight.

Somehow, Miles was willing to let her carefully reach for the lamp in the hallway, squinting up at his crouched form on the ceiling as if he were some sort of lost cockroach.

“That's still plugged in. And you have poor upper arm strength, so you can't toss it at me without missing and then having to pick up glass shards before your aunt gets home.” He stated matter-of-factly, and Claire's nostrils flared in agitation as she struggled up pull the cable loose from the socket.

Miles knew that Dr. Octavius had a small research facility under the building, almost as well as he knew that her apartment had a mean security system that caught Peter once before when he tried recovering some documents from her work desk.

“You're after me even now! Why?”

That got him to raise his brow at her, or, as she saw it with the mask on, a sudden widening of his optic lenses in her direction.

“After... you? You think I'm some sort of assassin? Stalker?”

Uncertainty flickered across her face, settling in the tiny frown he witnessed a few days ago. Only this time she looked at the lamp and back at him, seemingly exhausted at the prospect of staying angry. Now that he payed closer attention, she seemed a little _out of it_ tonight; hair stuck to her damp forehead, her eyes glassy, her form hunched forward...

“You good? You don't look so hot, or,  _err_ , you kind of do, actually.”

“I took aunt Liv's painkillers.” She seemed unsure of what emotion to settle for, and instead heaved a breath to try and get stray locks of hair out of her eyes. “My shoulder hurt so I took painkillers, but...”

Miles slowly unwinded his limbs from the tense crouch, calmly standing upside down on the ceiling of his arch enemies poorly coordinated hallway with the most  _hideous_   _wallpapers_ _he'd_ _ever_ _seen_ , and facing her niece who seemed to be struggling maintaining her balance at the moment. Momentarily he didn't know what to make of the situation, but concern mixed in with a little guilt settled as a second skin over him.

“But?” By the time he jumped down to the ground, Claire winced and defensively formed a fist with her healthy hand.

Her glaring was rather unfocused, and her short, staggered, puffs of breath turned to a raspy cough.

“Hey,” he started, and she inhaled, taking a step back when he extended his arm towards her, “Claire, calm down. I want to help you. What did you take?”

“L-look, I know Liv... I know aunt Liv is doing some bad stuff. I know she has this weird  _obsession_  with you and your insides.” Her voice became smaller. She looked at his offered palm with wariness.

Miles witnessed her weighing her options, recognized the silent contemplation of trusting a stranger.

“She isn't a bad person, actually,” she continued, pinned against the reasonable choice of tentatively setting her trembling fingertips onto his palm. “She's angry at that Fisk guy, and I... she knows... _my mom_ _didn't_...”

He tried to keep up with her rambling, but her knees suddenly buckled and his panicked  _Claire_  was entirely too loud to not be caught by audio volume detectors. She shakily clutched at his shoulders, mumbling something about her shoulder hurting again, and Miles could feel her body heat through the latex of his suit.

“You're quite literally burning up, and the painkillers are only making you more sluggish. You have to rest. Where's your room at?”

Claire tried to talk and failed with another cough seizing up her throat. Instead she nodded her head to the door on his left. Good thing he had super strength, because lifting up a completely dead weight girl and then dropping her would be extremely unprofessional.

“Spider-man.” she said softly, her head slumped on his shoulder after he thwips her door closed behind him. Miles was busy raking his brain for his mothers advice on handling fevers and flu's, but he hummed in response after he set her down on the bed.

“Aunt Liv is hiding something from mister Fisk. He's really mad at her. That's why she's away so late.”

He barely registered her words, focused on fixing her pillow and pushing her hair back from her face. His mother used to press cold compresses to his forehead and make sure he drank a lot of water, but this was Dr. Octavius's home, and he was not about to go waltzing around it no matter the situation.

“What's she hiding, Claire? Is it here? Or in her lab?”

There was no reason for him to linger at the side of her bed any longer. For all he knew this could be feverish nonsense, but she looked so weak and small below the duvet, and he still wished to at least leave her  _something_  to drink before he left. It didn't seem like a situation where she could muster up a single lie even if she wanted to.

“The lab. I heard her talking through this weird device. Something about controlling armies and...”

“And?” He prompted, attention fully on her. Miles was _absolutely feigning ignorance_ to her fingers slipping back under his hand, even though he told himself to not get carried away with his kindness.

“She wants to destroy the thing before he gets it. Aunt Liv might dislike Spider-man, but she hates Wilson Fisk the most.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'll proof read this later


End file.
